New art-tech venture Dot Dash 3 sells art in virtual galleries

New art-tech venture Dot Dash 3 is something like a video game for art collectors. The new technology creates a virtual exhibition space that allows you to visualize artwork in 3D space without ever leaving your desk. The site is ostensibly for art sales, although the potential to create virtual exhibitions could, if the idea catches on (usually a big if in the world of online art ventures), make the technology commonplace on the websites of art institutions everywhere.

The new online space is the brainchild of Larisa Leventon, a former portfolio manager at Steve Cohen’s SAC Capital.

The new site is essentially a virtual gallery space curated by the artists who show on the site.
Below the interactive graphic — where “framed” JPEGs representing real life paintings and drawings “hang” on the walls alongside GIFs and videos — is a description of the show, written by the artist, a biography, and occasionally accompanying audio. Clicking on a work within the graphic interface brings up more information about it, as well as the price.

According to Leventon, the site experience “allows you to get a sense of the artist and the person who is behind the work. It’s not just seeing a list of JPEGs with a hundred other JPEGs … with art it’s important to have that context.”

Dot Dash 3 novel in its aesthetics, but also in its business model, which is one reason to believe it might have staying power. Leventon has a patent pending on her graphic interface, and plans to license it out to others in the art world that might want to create web-based art viewing space. If she is successful in creating revenue from her patent, then the company will have more room to breathe on the art sales end, allowing it to focus on the former rather than the latter.

The goal is to keep work on the site in the affordable range for newer collectors of the seven current exhibitions up, prices range from $300 to $12,000. For more info on this story head over to ARTINFO.COM

About Mark Westall

Mark Westall is the founder and editor of FAD Website, a curation of the world’s most interesting culture, and Creative Director of FAD Agency, a strategy & creative agency working with brands to solve business problems using cultural tools.
In 2008 following his passion for art he founded what has grown to become FADwebsite.
FADwebsite is internationally recognized as a key figure within the emerging and contemporary art world, and has been selected as official partner by organizations as diverse as Moving Image, Volta and Christie’s.
In addition Mark is a columnist for City and Canary Wharf Magazines and expert advisor to art fair Strarta.